Drop the Fucking Gun, America!

When my oldest was toddling around, he picked up a line from a movie that I was watching and repeated it incessantly. Now I want to share that phrase with you, America, but I’ll just say it once: DROP THE FUCKING GUN!

I know they’re precious to you. I get our history. But you know it’s time. You’ve seen too many children killed. Too many massacres in everyday places.

Don’t do the “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” thing. You’re too smart for that. You understand the facts. You know that countries with stricter laws have less deaths. It’s a simple matter of percentages. Let’s put them in our favor. In our kids favor. In our grandchildren’s favor.

If you don’t have a gun, give up something else. Violent film? Toy Uzis? Killing games? Bad attitudes? See your therapist or your pastor when you’re angry. Talk to a friend. Make peace with something that irks you.

Things are bad in this country. See them. Realize how close gun violence is. For all of us.

Recently I had to wake up to that fact myself. Just moments after telling a foreign friend that she needn’t worry while she was here (“I’ve never been threatened by a weapon,” I said), I remembered the neighbor who killed his boss at our local co-op last summer; and the parents of students killed in hunting accidents; and the students who shot themselves.

This. So much, this. It’s saddening that some people seem to care more about guns than people. I actually saw someone post this on Facebook, and I was completely appalled:

“I don’t care if they kill every kid in the damn country. The 2nd Amendment stays period. You want our guns? Fine, come and take em!”

I’d happily have gone my entire life without knowing someone ever even really thought that, never mind said it.

I haven’t seen a gun in 15 years, my country’s gun deaths and intentional homicide deaths per capita are a fraction of the USA’s. I like it this way. It continues to amaze me that so many Americans prefer higher risks of them and those they love being shot for the sake of an illusory sense of security.